The Starting Point
by Spring Zephyr
Summary: Kensuke eventually makes a friend.
**My current favorite is Daina (and I'm writing this even before having seen episode 5), but I really wanted to write about Kensuke.**

Kensuke never raised his hand in class, so he had no idea why the teacher called on him. Writing notes was difficult with a puppet on his hand too – he only had one on at the moment, which already left him feel anxious and exposed.

"Without the puppet, please."

The puppet's mouth reluctantly closed. Ker and Bes already didn't like speaking without each other. Without either of them, the words Kensuke could have said wound up in a jumbled ball, trapped between the walls of his throat. A light blush rose to his face instead, the closest thing to an answer that Kensuke could come up with.

But that didn't mean he wasn't allowed to try.

"Ih... Eugh..."

He attempted to force the ball from his throat. Instead, he only forced the teacher to intervene. "That's enough, Kensuke. Thank you for trying."

With a mixture of contempt and relief, he sat back down. "Don't force yourself," his mother had told him. "You'll get the hang of it one day."

"What a freak," the kids in the back of the classroom said.

XxX

For the longest time, Kensuke's best friends had been his puppets. His beyblade. His mom, despite how often Ker argued about her sometimes. (He didn't need the puppets to talk to his mom; it had started out as a game, once upon a time.)

It was simple. He'd liked it.

He also liked having Valt as a friend now, though, liked that Valt was understanding and outgoing and liked Kensuke's puppets almost as much as Kensuke did.

"I tried making one of my own," Valt grinned sheepishly.

It was a sad mess, held together with wide, loose stitches that revealed several gaping holes and a puzzle for a face.

The quality was not the source of Valt's embarrassment.

"I couldn't figure out how to make it talk like you do though."

"I guess you couldn't figure out where to find a sewing machine either."

Did he really just say that?

Bes opened its mouth, prepared to make a rescue, but Valt brushed him off with a smile. "I know, I know. My mom actually offered to help, but I told her I wanted to do this myself."

He knocked a fist against his own forehead, emphasizing the stupidity of the idea.

It was unusual for Ker, Bes, _and_ Kensuke to be at a loss for words, let alone twice in such a short amount of time.

Valt, on the other hand, never had that problem. "Because that's how you made yours, right? By yourself."

"We had years of practice..." Bes said.

"I know, so that makes mine pretty impressive for a first time, right?"

"Y-yes."

"You barely stuttered that time, awesome!"

XxX

"Most people move their mouths to talk."

It could have been a compliment, but the girl with the droopy pigtails wore an expression like she'd just climbed out of a bath filled with earthworms.

"Some people move their mouths too much..." Bes muttered.

"It's the quality of what you say that's important," Ker grumbled almost immediately after, as fast as Kensuke could pantomime it, "not the quantity."

Apparently, there had been a few spiders in the bath as well. The girl shot him a distorted look of disgust, the kind that Kensuke hadn't thought possible and previously only seen in comic books. "I hope those dumb dolls get stolen some day," she huffed.

"I saw a psychic on TV that could speak with their mind once," the only other boy in the group offered.

"That was a fake show, dummy," the second girl sighed.

"Do you believe everything you see on television?"

They turned on each other faster than a pack of starving sharks. Kensuke could picture it – fins slicing through the water, circling their prey. They were tearing the boy apart with their words instead of teeth, but having been on the receiving end, Kensuke sometimes wondered if being torn limb from limb wouldn't be quicker.

"N-no!"

That was obviously a lie.

"Because my mom says that people who watch too much TV become gullible and lazy, and that they'll believe anything–"

The first girl cut back in right as Kensuke began to think he could sneak away unnoticed.

"For example," she started, putting heavy emphasis on the first two words for no perceivable reason, except maybe loving the sound of her own voice. "I hear Puppets here competes in Beyblade tournaments all of the time, but I bet he's not even that great."

"What would you know?! You don't even play–"

"Ugh, can you _not_ talk through the puppets?!"

"It's pretty creepy," the second girl agreed.

She was quieter, but not quite apologetic. And the both of them were hypocrites – they'd attended some of his family's shows when they first moved into town. It was how he'd almost made the mistake of assuming they were friends.

Kensuke bit his lip.

This was going nowhere, and the look on his face was one of embarrassment no matter how indignant Ker might have felt.

XxX

"Show me how to do that miming thing!" 

"Miming thing?" Ker asked.

The image that came to mind – hands pressed against air, trying to find his way out of an unseen box – didn't fit no matter how hard Kensuke tried. "Oh, you mean ventriloquism."

"Bentilla-wha?"

"Ventriloquism," Kensuke repeated slowly, lowering the puppets.

As if that would help. Most people acted surprised when they heard his "real" voice, but Valt just... didn't. It was nice.

Valt didn't stop looking confused, so he added, "You don't have to be able to say it to do it."

"And also don't feel if you c _an't_ do it," Bes said.

"You have other talents!" Ker snapped. Everything Ker said came out loud and snappish, even when he wasn't angry.

"Okay!" Valt beamed.

They sat for a few seconds in silence.

The lack of movement on Valt's face was nearly worrisome, until he ended up being the same person to break the silence. "...I guess it would be awkward for you to teach me how, huh?"

"Ah! Um..."

Kensuke mentally slapped himself.

"If you don't want to, that's okay–"

"–No, no, it's not that we don't want to!"

"It's just, we don't really remember how we learned."

"It'd be too hard!"

"Well," Valt said, completely undeterred, "I've seen you do it tons of times, I'll just follow your example!"

He inhaled a deep breath – Kensuke couldn't remember having ever set that "example", like, ever. In the exact opposite nature of ventriloquism, Valt's nostrils flared and his mouth opened wide, he began, "Aaaaaah– oooooooooh..."

"N-not bad for a first attempt..." Bes cringed.

"Keep working at it," Ker said bluntly. "Try actually closing your mouth next time."

For the next hour or so, Kensuke bore witness to all of the strange voices and faces Valt was capable of making. A few of them even managed to synch with his puppet.

Whether or not Valt realized he was as bad as he was remained a mystery – but at least he seemed to realize that he wasn't good. After a while he stopped, scratching the back of his head awkwardly.

"It's harder than I expected," Valt muttered.

Valt didn't have the voice of a quitter, just someone who was unsure what the next step should be. Kensuke liked that about him, that he never gave up.

Not even Ker minded his tenacity too much.

"Hm..."

They lapsed into another temporary silence, which Kensuke filled trying to scrape some long forgotten advice together from the foggier places in his memory. Valt beat him to the punch again, though.

"Since we did puppets today, why don't you join me for training tomorrow?" he asked.

Kensuke was aware of what Valt's training usually entailed.

"Sure," he agreed anyway.

XxX

Both of their Beyblades were green.

Neither of them were spinning.

Kensuke's had stopped second, though perhaps more of their onlookers would've been willing to believe him had he not taken so long to point it out. There was a girl up front who spared him the benefit of the doubt, a boy with spiky blond hair and too large boots, and maybe two or three others who only looked annoyed.

"What do you mean 'did Keito win?' Of course Keito won, he's the best blader in our class!"

"I don't know, that new kid held up better than I thought..."

"Pfft, he still lost."

The more vocal ones were quick to argue, but the majority didn't contest whether he won or lost.

And among his supporters, Kensuke was starting to get the impression that the spiky-haired kid was only backing him up out of jealousy. Whatever the reason, he didn't seem to like Keito.

Of course, Kensuke already had evidence that spiky didn't like him either, so there was no point in trying to become friends.

Despite how quick he was to celebrate his victories, even in situations where he hadn't actually won, Keito wasn't a bad kid. He sat in the desk next to Kensuke's in class. He'd offered to give Kensuke the cucumber salad his mother had packed for lunch that he didn't like earlier...

"Get real, he's second rate compared to me." Keito protested with pride, and Kensuke visibly cringed. "He's not _that_ good at Beyblading!"

Beyblading was more fun when he was by himself. Or in the middle of a stadium, filled with people – he had the most confidence in his skills there. He didn't like it as much when he was surrounded by people he knew.

X

Tokonatsu and Nika hadn't been wrong when they warned him only a crazy person would be able to endure their brother's training methods, but he'd enjoyed it anyway.

 **If you made it to the end, you should totally tell me who your favorite Burst character is so far. By the way, the end scene was originally longer until I decided going with a single sentence had more impact. What do you guys think?**


End file.
